Beer: Ratings & Reviews

I do like this brew - it's as good a fruit beer as I've found. What I enjoy most is the fact that it is still clearly a "blonde" ale with blueberry overtones. The berries are present in nose, taste and finish, but they are not overbearing. Good fruit beers manage to remain a beer with a fruity twist, and Pumphouse has created a great "go to" beer. I'm glad they sell these in tall cans, because they make an excellent beach/boat/campfire beer, and one is plenty.

Appearance: A sickly yellow with a small amount of haze but boasting ample carbonation is the tale of the body. It produced a finger and a half of head that did not lace but did retain decently.

Smell: As advertised, like Blueberries and Blonde ale as a strong scent of blueberries dominates the nose to a bready malt backing that gives it a blueberry muffin kind of scent to it. Warming doesn't really help it either way.

Taste: The blueberries take front and center on this one, and don't quite as they permeate the entire beer, almost to the point of drowning it out. The biscut malt in the background begins the beer and a earthy hop hit does it's darndest to try to break through the blueberry taste but to no avail.

Mouthfeel: Well the carbonation is solid and helps out the entire beer, but the aftertaste leaves a slushy feeling in your mouth that is a bit undesirable. Transitioning is a bit of a rocky road and seems to go on behind the scenes due to the overwhelming blueberry.

Drinkability: Well I had no issues downing a can in short order as the beer is incredibly light and smooth. The only thing holding me back is the slushy aspect that leaves you feeling far too quenched before the beer is done.

Final Thoughts: All in all a solid fruit beer, a fruit explosion it is not, and that's almost a bit disappointing. This beer uses the blueberries to bring you into it, but goes just a bit overboard on them, but not to an extreme point. This leaves me with a "more a spiked juice then beer" feeling about it. Still a thumbs up regardless though.

Blueberries are good, and beer is good, so therefore blueberries + beer must also be good...right? Such was Bucky's logic in buying a 473 ml can of Pump House Brewery's Blueberry Ale. Blueberry Ale was 5.0% alcohol by volume, with a production date of January 30, 2013 printed on the bottom of the can.

The Pump House Brewery Ltd. is located at 131 Mill Road in Moncton, New Brunswick, and offers five different brands of its own bottled beer, eight on tap and in kegs, and several other seasonal beers. Brewed in New Brunswick since 1999, Pump House bottled beer is available in every province except Saskatchewan and Quebec.

Blueberry Ale poured with a fizzy, very fine, white head that burned itself out in short order, leaving no spotting or lacing down the glass as it disappeared. The beer itself was slightly cloudy and yellow in colour. The beer's aroma and flavour are very simply described...sweet blueberry juice. As soon as I opened the can I was hit with a strong natural blueberry aroma. Likewise with the flavour...a sweet blueberry juice and not much else, which is fine with me since I was looking for blueberry when I bought the beer. Certainly no bitterness here, and a clean finish. Blueberry Ale was carbonated enough to remind you that you are drinking a beer and not pure blueberry juice, and I would describe it as light bodied. Overall, a refreshing change of pace, but given the sweetness I could enjoy one can, but that would be my limit. At $2.75 per 473 ml can Blueberry Ale was fairly priced.

This is a beer I remember liking as an undergraduate in New Brunswick. Will I still like it now?

A: Clear gold with more head than will fit in my too-small glass (no proper glassware for beer at my parents' house). Visible carbonation. Now that it's had a few minutes to settle, the head is about a centimetre tall.S: Blueberry! The blueberry is very prominent. I might be picking up a hint of corn.T: A mild, blueberry-flavoured pale ale. It's easy to see why I liked it back when I'd only tried a few different beers. Unless you hate blueberries, it's pretty inoffensive. If I wanted to put a positive spin on it, I could call it mild. If I wanted to put a negative spin on it, I could call it bland. More hops, please!F: A bit watery.

Taste - Faint blueberries. Well not so much faint as less prominant than i had expected from the nose. Otherwise there's some bready malts, and not a heck of a lot else. Maybe some very, very (very) faint spices. But hardly.

This beer pours a golden colour with a nice big thick foamy head which leaves a decent amount of lacing on the glass.

The fantastic aroma of blueberry always amazed me and just makes the beer so enticing before you even drink the first sip. Then comes the first burst of flavour of ripe blueberries. I've had this at the pumphouse where they threw in a few blueberries into the glass. The hop aroma and flavour is subtle and doesn't overpower the blueberry flavour. It's refreshing without being a fruity drink.